Pickled cucumbers are great to serve next to a steak, a stew or in burgers. Learn how to pickle cucumbers at home with this very easy, family recipe.
How to pickle cucumbers at home
My mom showed me how to pickle cucumbers, at a very early age and I’ve been using this recipe for a lot of years, with great success. We love pickles and I absolutely love making my own pickled vegetables, be it Pickled Green Tomatoes, red bell peppers or cucumbers. I like canning my own stuff as I know all ingredients I use are healthy and good for my family, no preservatives or other chemicals involved.
If you love pickles, you can easily make your own with this easy and quick homemade pickles recipe. Your pickles will taste amazing and the recipe only takes a few simple ingredients. It’s not time consuming either! And if you have friends that like homemade stuff, you could use a pretty jar when making the pickles and offer it as a gift.
There are probably many recipes out there teaching How to make pickled cucumbers but I swear by my mom’s recipe! It gives such tasty, crisp pickles that are not too spicy or salty. Wanna know how to pickle cucumbers with vinegar? Check out these super easy steps!
How to pickle cucumbers
Ingredients for 3 jars:
- Approx 2 kg = 4 lbs fresh pickling cucumbers
- 3 teaspoons sugar
- 3 teaspoons salt
- peppercorns
- yellow mustard seeds
- vinegar
- garlic (optional; I didn’t use as my daughter doesn’t like it)
- 6 large dry bay leaves or 9 small
- 3 jars
- water
Directions:
- Wash the cucumbers very well and keep only the healthy ones.
- Sterilize jars well (here’s an article on the topic)
- Place into jars (don’t overcrowd them).
- Add vinegar to the bottom of the jar (about 2 fingers).
- Put one teaspoon of sugar and one of salt in each jar.
- Add 2 large bay leaves (or 3 small), about 30 peppercorns and 1 teaspoon mustard seeds, per jar (if you chose to use garlic, put 2-3 cloves per jar at this stage).
- Fill with water almost up to the rim.
- Tightly screw the lid on.
- Place jars in a large pot and cover with water up to the lid.
- Bring to boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes.
- Leave to cool for 1 hour, without removing from the pot.
- Transfer to a baking sheet, bottoms up, and place in a pre heated oven on low, for 15 minutes. They’ll change color which is exactly what you want.
- Good to serve after about 1 month.
Ingredients
- Approx 2 kg = 4 lbs fresh pickling cucumbers
- 3 teaspoons sugar
- 3 teaspoons salt
- peppercorns
- yellow mustard seeds
- vinegar
- garlic (optional; I didn't use as my daughter doesn't like it)
- 6 large dry bay leaves or 9 small
- 3 jars
- water
Instructions
- Wash the cucumbers very well and keep only the healthy ones.
- Sterilize jars well (here's an article on the topic)
- Place into jars (don't overcrowd them).
- Add vinegar to the bottom of the jar (about 2 fingers).
- Put one teaspoon of sugar and one of salt in each jar.
- Add 2 large bay leaves (or 3 small), about 30 peppercorns and 1 teaspoon mustard seeds, per jar (if you chose to use garlic, put 2-3 cloves per jar at this stage).
- Fill with water almost up to the rim.
- Tightly screw the lid on.
- Place jars in a large pot and cover with water up to the lid.
- Bring to boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes.
- Leave to cool for 1 hour, without removing from the pot.
- Transfer to a baking sheet, bottoms up, and place in a pre heated oven on low, for 15 minutes.
- Good to serve after about 1 month.
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Love, love, love pickles. Thanks for sharing!
These look wonderful, and I would like to try them with some lemon cucumbers. Are you using quart jars in the recipe?
Thanks so much, Carrie. I’ve been using different jar sizes, the ones in the photos are pint jars.
Thank you for such a quick response! Unfortunately, I was way too excited to wait and tried it with quart jars. Will it still work? Is a tsp enough salt for a quart jar? Also, a little liquid leaked from a couple of the jars during the upside down in the oven process. Has this ever happened to you? Let me know if you think I need to start over… I am pretty new to canning, and have only done fruit jam in the past. Thank you Petro!